The Travels of Jack van Ommen

February 22nd, 2015

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2/23: I was ahead of my self. It turned out that John’s daughter does not have any spare passes. So, I’m back to square 1.

2/22: It did not take giving myself away in marriage or into adoption. A Knight in Shining Armor came to the rescue and did me the Favor. We made the deal this morning after the 8.30 mass at my parish church. John Oldham is an actual Knight, a Knight of Columbus at my church. When I was still in Holland with the boat he had wanted to come meet me. His daughter, Mary, is a flight attendant for an international carrier and flies frequently on the Amsterdam flights. I get my inexpensive travel and John gets his Dutch travel guide. My finances continue to limit my expenditures. Tomorrow I have the first of both cataracts being removed. The eye drops and antibiotics cost me already close to $ 600 this month… and I will have a number of expenditures yet ahead before the boat is ocean voyage ready for this summer departure.

Today I received more details and the official invitation to the program on May 4th in the Bellevue Theater in Amsterdam. In the program “Names instead of Numbers” thirteen students will present their biographies of thirteen Dachau prisoners. One of these students will come specially from Germany, Henriette Schulze , and present the story on our mother Rennie de Vries-van Ommen. Her story is based in part on “The Mastmakers’ Daughters” and interviews with my twin brother, who lives in Germany, and her own research. More details: http://www.theaternadedam.nl/voorstelling/geen-nummers-maar-namen/

There will also be a special exhibition at the Verzetsmuseum (Museum of the Dutch Resistance) in Amsterdam on the Dachau program “Names instead of Numbers”: http://www.verzetsmuseum.org/museum/nl/exposities/expositie-geen-nummers-maar-namen . The two women featured, who were in the same Dachau AGFA Commando in Dachau with our mother, in this exhibit, Lies Bueninck – Hendrikse and Willemijn Petroff- van Gurp I have met personally. Lies passed away at age 100 in 2010. see: http://cometosea.us/?m=200909 Willemijn is still very much alive, see previous blog. I expect to see her again at the annual Dachau commemoration on April 25 and on May 4th.